Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz.

I had the inspiration to write about Sor Juana, as we call her familiarly in Mexico, because she was a most remarcable woman, almost unknown outside of Mexico, where, by the contrary, she's so well known that the 200-peso bills carry her portrait.
Her name translates as Sister Joan Inez of the Cross, her name as a nun, while her name in the world was Juana de Asbaje y Ramírez. There are tons of books about her in Spanish, but very little information in English. Here, I'm going to link the best I found on the web about her in Shakespeare's language, a page from Oregon State U.
That information in general is quite accurate except for a few typos. I will refer only to one: it says she was born in Mepantla, but the actual name of the town is Nepantla; an obvious typo. Another minor mistake is that when she goes to school at the age of three, she goes to the "amiga" (femenine friend), and the Oregon U page says it means "girl", which it doesn't. Niña for a young one or muchacha for an older one are the words for girl. Actually "amiga" was the name given to what we call kindergarten now, back then in 1651. Amiga for the girls and amigo for the boys.
One more thing I want to comment -although it is hinted at in that article- is that when she was 16 years old, the fame of her huge culture came to the ears of the Viceroy of Mexico, who gathered FOURTY wise men, in all sciences Divine and human and she was called to the Viceroyal Palace to sit in the middle of the 40, who threw all kinds of questions to her...and she responded every one correctly! She even elaborated some of them explaining obscure points of Theology, Astronomy, poetry, what have you, to those learned men. The Viceroy and his wife were so amazed and happy with her that from that moment on she lived for several years in the Palace.
Ok, enough of me. Let the Oregon University page speak.
P.S. Just want to add that she wrote a huge amount of books, many of them in verse. She said it was easier for her to write in verse than in prose. She even wrote a Treatise on Astronomy in verse.
Ok, this is all :)